


and when my time is up, have i done enough? (will they tell our story?)

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Claire Temple Deserves Better, F/M, Gen, Speculative Defenders Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 20:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8174809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: Claire stopped wasting time on tears when she pulled in a man in a mask out of a dumpster and he pulled the entirety of her life in there with him.  Now she's watching him walk into a pit with three other disasters.





	

**_oh i can't wait to see you again,_ **

**_it's only a matter of time..._ **

* * *

 

Claire Temple stopped wasting time on tears the moment a man in a mask crashed into her dumpster and brought the whole of her life in there with him. 

That was uncharitable, maybe, (she’d _chosen_ to drag him out of that dumpster, put stitches in his skin, told him where to drive something sharp into a nerve, counted on him to save her, talked him through cauterizing a wound on the man who tried to kill her) but the point was, Claire didn’t waste her time on things that wouldn’t happen. That’s why she left Hell’s Kitchen.

That’s why she came back to Harlem. 

That’s why she’s standing on the edge of pit, watching Matt, Luke, Jessica and some kid they called Danny (with a eerie, crackling energy rolling off him, like nothing’s she ever felt, like lightning looking for somewhere to strike) and they’re about descend into something none of them can explain and maybe none of them can stop. 

Claire isn’t sure why she’s here. To bear witness. Because someone has to. Because she’s the common thread, the link in the chain they all know, the one that’s patched them up and talked them through long nights and she’s got the city’s blood on her hands now too. _They_ are the city, all of them, and she’s responsible for putting them back together. 

She looks at their faces, all of them. The boy Danny barely leashed power pouring off him, Jessica and Luke who gravitate around each other like magnets or lions looking to pounce. And then at Matt, last of all, first of her charges, the patron saint of Hell’s Kitchen, martyr of the dark and suffering.  Matt with gentle, fighter’s hands and the devil in his bones. The man she could’ve loved, if things were different. Who she could still love. If things were different.

But they aren’t. So she won’t waste time thinking about it. 

“Come back,” is what she says instead, while her heart screams, _stay, stay, stay, don’t go, I love you, I love you all, stupid brave heroic fools who can’t walk away or back down from a fight–_  “Come back. All of you.”

Her spine is straight, her tone unflinching.  Danny nods, Jessica’s usually sardonic faces softens ever so slightly. Luke bends from his great height to kiss the crown of her head. It feels like a benediction, it feels like goodbye _._

Matt stretches his hands out to her, gloved, outlandish and mythological against the dark of the pit. She grips it in her own with every ounce of strength she has. 

“Claire,” he says softly, gently, like a prayer drifting up on a plume of smoke, “thank you.”

Her fingers curl around the sleeve of his suit and don’t let go until he steps into the pit. 


End file.
